Monday, November 30, 2009

A couple months ago I purchased Cinderella Birthday party decor. For months Cinderella has been her favorite Disney princess and I thought that would be a safe bet for a Birthday party theme. 2 days before the party she starts saying she wants a Flower Birthday party. She as far as I can tell is the artists out of the 3 and can spends hours at a time coloring and painting when the others loose interest. So the day before her birthday party we spent an hour painting 6 sheets of cardstock. every inch filled with acrylic painted flowers. We threaded satin ribbon and used it as a banner hanging over her tea party table. Valencia using Grandma Purl's (My maternal Grandma's) cat tea pot and tea cups and saucers.You were an unexpected blessing and I've never known a love like I love this little girl!We pray for your health and safety everyday. God Bless you darling baby! xoxo

That's my sweet little boy on the left. The kids in his Kindergarten class chose if they wanted to be pilgrims or indians and made outfits according to their choices. The pilgrims made collars and hats, bonnets for the girls. The indians all made vests out of Grocery bags and headbands and wrote stories in Indian writing on their vests.His teacher held a costume making party where parents came to help their little ones make their attire and the next day some of the room mothers & I came to set up their Pie Feast table. I brought all of the table decorations from home so their was no additional cost. The Pilgrims... The Indians.... And my sweet little girls who came along for the party..

It's been so fun being a room parent for my son's class this year. I can't wait for the Christmas and Valentine's Parties to come!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

I am SO excited to finally have updated My Etsy shop with some newly created products.It was time to see what other product designs I could come up with. I am showing my favorite creation first. These little scalloped cone paper Earrings!These are really really cute on! At first my husband looked at me like I was crazy and then I put them on and he got it.I have listed the most basic and beautiful pair so far. Just a simple Ephemera earring. But there is so much to do with this concept. I need to paint the paper first and add some beading and so on.. This technique is going to be a very fun one to play with! And how fitting that you should be wearing paper earrings to your scrap nights and art classes! It was time to retire the 3 Trim Tag sets for a few months and create some simpler supply tags that you can take apart and use. Above are individual tags wrapped with ALOT more trims than before. Vintage Mini Millinery roses handstitched onto vintage book paper tags were a beautiful embellishment for this tag. There is no reason to do away with my signiture coffee dyed hand cut tags but I was interested in seeing what kind of tags I could make with ephemera. I have many beautiful old books that have served their purpose and are ready to be used for art. Above is a beautiful solution to this. Using vintage delicate book paper I hand punch tags, stamp images with staz- on ink and add a simple cotton string.I have a beautiful collection of many Vintage Rhinestone pieces that really should stand alone on a supply tag. Here is a vintage rhinestone bow pinned onto a vintage music sheet scalloped circle. This supply tag has 2 yards of each vintage lace, a few scalloped circle tags and a vintage rhinestone jewelry bauble. These Ephemeral Tags have been printed on directly instead of having been stamped.It creates a very original look that would be beautiful for Jewelry tagging I believe.And my final product that I have just listed are the most amazing ephemeral sheets you have ever seen. I have sold sheets like this before but the vintage book paper I had used before was just too thin and delicate for printing. These sheets however are from a sturdy book printed in the 1890's. It is a French Art book called (CALZINE ,VRBINO) All items seen in this post are listed in my shop now and ready to take home!!!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Take Ten Winter 2010 will be available December 1st, 2009 . There are so many cute ideas in this issue. I especially enjoyed another featured artists envelopes in the front of the magazine.

Here is the layout which features my Antiqued Envelopes. I loved making these and they sure looked beautiful in my Etsy shop but the Art of letter writing is pretty much dead so it's not likely to sell well. They can however be used for love notes to your spouse, Putting notes in lunchboxes, and notecards for friends.Thanks so much to Christen, Take Ten's managing Editor for creating this layout! It's beautiful!!

Saturday, November 21, 2009

SURPRISE!! ~ Well for me anyway. I thought after Belle Armoire's issue in September/ October I was done receiving magazine's for the remainder of 2009 that I was featured in but to my surprise I received this in the mail yesterday.I was so curious to see what it was that was being featured and finally I flipped to this pageIt felt so sentimental seeing these tags because these tags were made from my late Grandma's Quilt. It was a good 40 years old atleast and the top layer of the quilt was thinning. No longer able to use it for a quilt I still wanted it around so I cut a million little hearts out of all of the quilt blocks. It was really hard I remember, sitting on the couch and cutting up a quilt that I knew she so lovingly has stitched together. But it made me happy to know that it would still be enjoyed.I sent 12 of these tags into the Editors at Stampington so they could hand them out at their Editorial meetings just as a Thank you. Like little Hospitality favors. I had just gotten the position in Mops for Hospitality and was so excited to start that I started practicing on them I guess :) So, even though I didn't intend to turn them in for publication here they are. & I couldn't be more thrilled about it :)Hope you Enjoy!!

Friday, November 20, 2009

I am honored and ecstatic to show you all a beautiful layout of my feature in the September/ October issue of Stampington's Belle Armoire Magazine. This is a 2 page layout Question & Answer feature on the "Art of Presentation"

Amanda Crabtree is an amazing Editor who works on so many of the publications at Stampington and I am so honored to be working with her on more features to come in 2010.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Thanks to a wonderful group of friends, bloggers and Etsy buyers our family was able to make up 7 Operation Christmas Child Boxes. I am hoping this post will be a kind of instructional / inspirational post on how to contribute to this great organization!

EXPLAINING: One of the most important and worth while parts of this whole process is to be sure your children are feeling all of the necessary emotions involved when they are asked to open their hearts and minds and give. They should feel curious about why someone would give something of theirs to another, They should feel excitement while shopping , the hunt of the items for that person, They should know they might feel a certain selfishnessinitially when they have to give up these material items, They should feel love when thinking and praying for the person they are giving to and at last they should feel satisfied knowing that having the heart of a servant has made God happy.To do this I sat the kids down in a quiet room with no toys early in the day when I knew they would be ablet o pay attention and comprehend what I was saying.I explained all of these emotions is simplest terms. By keeping the conversation to only 7 minutes they were able to understand without loosing interest. I made sure to tell them if at anytime during the process they had any questions to ask me.

Box #1~ Girl age 5-9

SHOPPING:We had so much fun shopping for each child.We didn't choose what age ranges or gender we would be buying for. I left it up to chance what shoes would be available.I began by going to all of my favorite Consignment shops . I found 3 brand new pair of shoes that way at only $3 to $5 for each pair. Then I moved onto Payless and Walmarts clearance sections to find the rest of the shoes with the cheapest shoes costing $3 and the most exspensive pair were $6.While my Son Jaedin was at Kindergarten for 4 hours , my daughters and I devoted 2 days to shopping at Grace's Merry Go Round, Mom's Resale, The Dollar Tree, Michaels & Walmart.Tip: To keep track of what I had bought I made an index card for each box and labeled the top by Box # _ , Each time I bought something I wrote it on the card. Then stapled the 7 index cards together to carry with me while shopping. This way I could tell if the gift was age appropriate, if it would all fit in the box and if I was getting too many items. Once I filled 7 slots of items I stopped buying for that box.

Box #2~ Girl age 5-9

Box #3~ Girl age 2-4

Box #4~ Girl age 5-9

Box #5~ Boy age 2-4

Box #6~ Boy age 2-4

Box #7~ Boy age 2-4

Praying / Packing: This is a step that is largly up to your personal beliefs. If you want to send well wishes you can send a note. If you are faith based you can choose to say prayers for each child that will recieve the gift. Here are some scriptures on giving,Proverbs 14:31"He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,but whoever is kind to the needy honors God."Deuternonomy 16:17Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you. Simplifying these scriptures is a great way to convey the message.

Package the boxes by carefully placing each gift in a neat manner to relay the message of time and care taken to pack the boxes. Finally, it has been a reoccuring message in my Stampington articles that the Art of Presentation shows the love and care you put into the gift. By wrapping each box top lid with lucious looking purple satin ribbon (from FiniRibbon)I think it finished of the "present" look.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

After a custom order through Etsy. I discovered how I loved making these new crepe flowers that were suppose to be poppies. Looking at them now I'm not so sure they really resemble a poppy but they are sure are beautiful and fun to make.Instead of a bunching and spinning technique like with the roses these petals are individually attached.